Be Thou My Vision

Swing! Swing, my classmates kept screaming. I stood poised at home plate waiting for the pitch. Palms sweating, dread filling every part of my body, I would rather have been anywhere other than there. You see, I come from a family void of any interest in sports. Even though my extended family is huge, when we got together, sports were neither the activity or the topic of discussion. In addition to this, I have never been known for my agility, speed, or strength. So, needless to say physical education class was always a source of great anxiety and dread. Feelings of embarrassment, fear, and inadequacy were my constant companions during those school years. On this particular day embarrassment reached a new pinnacle. In my hesitancy and dread I was paralyzed. At the time it seemed that not swinging would be preferable to swinging and missing. Oh how wrong I was! As I stood there wishing the ground would swallow me, the pitch came and unbelievably hit my stationary bat! The...

My track record with cell phones is less than stellar! I go thru phones at a very unacceptable rate. Their demise is due to a variety of reasons. My last phone prior to my moving into the “smart phone” world survived a dip in the toilet and a night out on the trail in the snow. The fact that it still worked was miraculous. Last year I was due for an upgrade and I decided I was ready for a smart phone. I got one of the new Droids. What an amazing device! However, I soon discovered that smart phones are very moisture sensitive among other things. About three months after getting my new Droid, I put it in my back jeans pocket and you guessed it, plunk, in the toilet. I got it out super quick but to no avail. It was dead! No problem, I had insurance. So, a trip to the Verizon store and $89 later I had a brand new Droid. The salesman did caution me that I was only allowed two insurance claims on the life of the phone, so “be careful with this one”, he said. All was well un...

When we were considering moving to Long Island I asked about the weather since I am not a fan of cold. I was told the weather was usually only 8-10 degrees cooler than Tennessee and that it didn’t snow all that much. Sounded like something I could manage. But alas, since arriving, Long Island has had the two snowiest and coldest winters in many years. We’re talking feet of snow, not inches like I was used to. I now know what a Noreaster is and I’ve experienced enough snow to last me a life time. We returned a few weeks ago from a trip to TN to find the accumulation of several snows that had fallen in our absence. Snow for many is a welcome respite from school, work, or the constant running of our lives. But for me, it is not a welcome site. The initial awe of the beauty of the snow is quickly followed by the realization of just how difficult it makes my life. Taking care of 17 horses, 50+ chickens, 3 mini donkeys, a potbellied pig, and a partridge in a pear tree is extremel...

T he other day I was cooking dinner and needed to pull something from the oven. Seeing no pot holder handy, I grabbed a dish towel to use instead. As often happens, a simple act brought back a flood of memories. I remembered watching my sweet grandmother, Mammy, do that a thousand times. I don’t remember her ever having a collection of “pretty” dish towels or pot holders. If she did, she was saving them! They weren’t the ones she reached for to do the job. She typically grabbed hot things with either the bottom of her apron or used one of her well worn rags as she called them. We used to laughing say she had “asbestos hands”. Mammy used, washed, and reused rags for everything. They weren’t pretty, but they served a multitude of purposes very well. What looked like rags became something much more in her precious hands, I got to thinking how like those rags we are, not pretty, nothing special, but in the right hands for the right purpose, very functional and quite valuable. ...

I read an article recently about flowers in which a chemist works with the enticing floral aromas which will be used in perfumes. Tucked away in the article was this finding; while doing her research, the chemist discovered that the instant a rose is cut from the bush, it’s fragrance is altered. I found that to be amazing and profound. Imagine, cutting a rose from it’s vine or bush, immediately changes it’s fragrance. How about me? What happens to me when I am cut or separated from “the Vine”? In John, Jesus teaches a powerful lesson about being either attached to or separated from Jesus, the Vine. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you . No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you be...

Almost 20 years ago, when we were moving into a house we had built, I had a wingback chair made by a local furniture maker. At the time I ordered it in a country blue and peach stripe fabric. It seemed like a great idea at the time. Now that seems quite unappealing, but at the time it was “in” and matched my other country decorating style. When it was completed, we moved it in, but for some reason, it was a very under utilized piece of furniture. You know how there seems to be one chair that catches all the stuff, but is rarely sat in. When we left that house and moved to our farm the chair was in storage in the loft of the barn while we built our house. Four years later when it was time to move in all the stored furniture, the chair was in need of some serious work. It seems that the barn cats had utilized it plenty as their own personal kitty bed. After some deliberation about whether to chunk it or rescue it, I decided to have it recovered. Maybe at last it would be more ...

H ere on Long Island our local wholesale buying club is called BJ’s. It’s like Sam’s and Costco. Pretty much everyone I know buys at these wholesale monsters. The prices are usually better, but the catch is they require buying in bulk. The problem comes in when you don’t have the space to store all the loot that seemed so appealing and desirable in the store. Who has the space to store 18 roles of paper towels, 36 roles of toilet tissue, oatmeal in bulk, or all the other things we lug in? A few months ago, while shopping for groceries in BJ’s, I spotted a big package of frozen chopped spinach. The big bag contained 3 “smaller” bags that each contained about one pound each. One of my planned meals for the week called for frozen spinach. So, why not buy enough for future meals that might per chance call for the spinach. Great idea, right? There is, however, one complicating factor. When I lived in Tennessee, we had three, yes three, refrigerators, and 2 freezers. It was gre...